Dear community,

What do you think of this coin?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ROUBLE-1897-with-two-b...1QQcmdZViewItem

I was about to bid but then noticed that heads of the "birds" look to the word "dolya" and not away from it, how it should be, according to the catalogues. If this coin would be genuine, it would be the R3 rarity, according to Bitkin. But my personal opinion is that 2 stars (normal edge variety for Bruxelles mint) were manipulated to those "birds".

What's your opinion?

Greetings

Birds on the edge? I thought they were supposed to be stars on the Brussels minted coins.

Two "birds" were a pattern edge variety on the Bruxelles coins. Until now it is controversial whether it is really a variety or the edging machine was broken Only Bitkin and Uzdenikov list this variety, whereas all others (Ilyin, Severin...) not.

It is definetely an alternation. I'd stay away.

Good day.

Do not think it is alteration, there are many with "broken stars". In any case it is NOT a Brussels mint pattern, so why to buy common coin in Fine condition?

WCO

I agree, do not buy it.

Some bidiot paid $36 for that piece of dermo.

IgorS, in our previous discussion of these pattern coins, you mentioned that you own one of these (I believe it was you??) and that you were going to try to post some images. Now would be a good time to do it!

Here it is. When I bought it years ago, I thought it was a bird, now I changed my opinion .

Does anyone have a picture of what the "birdy" mark looks like?

I am quite puzzled over what the fuss is all about. What it seems like it's just that the edge collar is damaged, which unfortunately had to be at the end of the text where the mintmark is and creating these jokes.

If you have Uzdenikov, 2nd edition, it is shown on page 613.

I hope it wasn't too great a financial setback. I'm still hoping that someday, someone will show a picture of a REAL birdie coin. Until then, I am not convinced that they really exist except for the varieties we now have.

Interestingly enough, Kazakov states that they are not really trial coins, but nevertheless a rare edge variety. He prices them accordingly (in US-$):


I suppose there are just too many collectors with specimens for which they paid a lot of money.
Also interesting is that these coins are never found in higher grades. I wonder why?

A birdie??? Looked like ticks to me instead.

Nevertheless, I really doubt one can find such pattern coins THAT easily - it took me some time to look for the Paris mint in F condition but I paid slightly over melt value so I'm not complaining.

The English translator seems to have coined the term "ticks". If you look at the Russian text in the table on page 151 describing the 1897 Brussels pattern roubles, you will see that they describe the marks as птички which means "little birds".

птички ~ ptichki, little birds. Curiously it is an imitative word, being that the word imitates what little birds do.

Hmmm ... I should have looked into my Russian dictionary at least once before posting so quickly.

There are TWO meanings for птичка, one being the diminuitive of птица (=bird) and the other meaning "tick", as in check mark (but not the insect; that is a клещ). The verb "to tick" is translated as ставить птичку. So "tick" is also a legitimate translation, although from the looks of the illustrations (especially the coins having broken stars, not the ones in Uzdenikov) the ticks do resemble little birds in flight. Kazakov also mentions them, but they are translated as "birdies" in his book.

Which makes me think:
In German, if someone has a tick, one can say that they "have a bird" (Er hat einen Vogel)...
And then there is the tick made by the cuckoo clock, which is a little bird... (although that would be тиканье ...)